Book Review

A quieter, more contemplative life, one punctuated only by the scraping of chairs after a leisurely lunch and the wind rustling through the lavender fields… Sara Clemence

We have a lot of fun changes coming to our blog in the next few weeks, and we sincerely hope all of you will join us at the table for great conversations, recipes and more. Some of the more astute may have already noticed that our name has evolved from ‘Eat Till You Bleed’ to ‘Pistou and Pastis’. Pistou and Pastis perfectly captures our life at the moment, and reflects the impossible to fight gravitational pull of all things southern France for us. As I grow older, my desire to slow life down, enjoy the simpler moments and sip pastis in the golden sunshine, nibbling on tapenades with good friends is what truly sparks me.

It’s a good thing that dumplings are small because Lee Anne’s goodies will make your willpower vanish as you reach for ‘just one more’. ~ Roger Mooking, Musician and Celebrity Chef

True confession. I have two massive obsessions in life, collecting cookbooks and eating dumplings. Both started sometime early in my adolescence and only intensified as I aged and cured. The limits of how far I would travel for either knows no boundaries and certainly there is no excess too great in order to obtain just one more. I attribute both of their roots directly to my dearly departed father Real. He was a classicist with an unbridled passion for literature and books combined with a mastery of language unmatched. He learned to speak, read and write fluently in Chinese and Arabic in less than two years through an aggressive immersion deep into their native cultures. Well, at least as immersed as one could be based in Chicago.

The ‘Arabic Years’ were spent sharing plates of kibbeh, hummus and pickled turnips in the smoke filled dingy back rooms with Lebanese taxi drivers teaching my father the finities of street Arabic between fares. During the ‘Chinese Years’, we visited many dim sum palaces in search of truth and enlightenment deep within the often hidden, underground populations of Chicago’s two Chinatowns. My father’s unabashed penchant for answering anyone who looked Chinese in perfect Chinese opened many secret doorways to hidden worlds of immigrants largely out of view from the general American public.

It was in the skilled hands of Chef Jimmy of Moon Palace that I experienced my first real profound dumpling revelation, a moment in time I can and will never forget.

A recipe is rather like a piece of music. Although the notes may be read and reproduced faithfully the result can still be crude, mechanical or just uninteresting. Roger Verge

Notes from My Fictitious Mazet

Recently I bought a home in Vancouver, Washington and found myself with the unenviable task of having to move yet again. Hopefully for the last time but who really knows. If I did my calculations correctly, at best I shall be carted off to the nursing home drooling uncontrollably in a snug pair of Depends by the time the last house payment is paid. At worst, I will be found by bill collectors thoroughly mummified with a glass of pastis in one hand and a tartine of tapenade in the other….

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.

– Calvin Coolidge

Of all the culinary treats that grace the French Christmas table, nothing inspires more child-like joy than a rich, chocolate Bûche de Noël. Real yule logs, the kind from living trees, have had symbolic significance to the French for centuries. Until the late 1800’s, it was a widespread custom for extended families to gather under one roof, and burn a sacramonial log. In the soft glow of the embers, the family would drink vin cue, cooked wine and sing Christmas carols before attending midnight mass.

My family has been giving homemade Bûche de Noel’s to friends, families and our local community since I was a small child. This holiday season, I am sharing my favorite recipe so that you may start your own family tradition.

Dungeness Crabs are to Thanksgiving menus in the Pacific Northwest what turkeys are to everyone else’s in America. They are the harbinger of late Fall, signalling that Thanksgiving is upon us. Crab bibs are dusted off and pounds of sweet cream butter melted in anticipation of feasts to come. National news reports of large, toxic algae blooms earlier in the year weighed heavy on the minds of locals much like a forecast of a snowless late December haunts the minds of small children facing a Santa-less Christmas. Thanksgiving is here and I started to craving sweet, briny Dungeness crab. I was troubled by recent news stories that there may not be a crab season at all. Rumors were spreading like wildfire that all crabs nationwide, even in Alaska, had been affected with abnormally high levels of a toxin called domoic acid. My heart sunk and I felt heavy and listless. Frozen crab can be found all year long but I prefer the flavor and texture of fresh Winter crabs….

Since getting backed on my kickstarter cookbook project I have been in full panic mode. I have so much work to do to finish the book in time to get it to Torrey Douglass, our phenomenal book designer, to get it to our publisher, to get it to those of you who graciously bought copies and backed my project. A rather shameless plug for my book is right here:bit.ly/KickstartSunshine. You are encouraged to still back my kickstarter campaign as we have set a stretch goal to cover a possible book tour. Many thanks….

“Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves, and spend without fear of bankruptcy.”

Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

Wow, we did it! Thanks to each and every one of YOU we hit our Goal in just 2 weeks! You helped us raise $20,913 in 16 days with 350 books sold to 219 backers! WOW, that is incredible! Big Thanks!

It has been an unbelievably emotional rollercoaster ride to which Lisa and I are forever in your debt. Words alone will never be able to fully express the heartfelt gratitude we feel. With the generous help from such amazing friends, co-workers, family and especially those angels we do not personally know who so generously gave, we are going to publish a book. If we are to listen to the nightly news we see a picture of a world filled with so much trouble, violence, and hate. This barn raising experience has shown us differently and shined a ray of light, hope, and belief in the human spirit. Thanks for making us believe again.

“A barn raising, also historically called a “raising bee” or “rearing” in the U.K., describes a collective action of a community, in which a barn for one of the members is built or rebuilt collectively by members of the community.” – Wikipedia

No one is born a great cook, one learns by doing. – Julia Child

My mother came from an upper middle class family that lived in the south of France. The extent of her food education before meeting my father was learned by eating in restaurants like Oustau de Baumaniere in Provence, Pieds de Cochon in Paris or having her father’s cook Mémé make dinner nightly.

When my mother came to America and first married my father she didn’t know how to cook. Ironically, she learned by reading Julia Child’s seminal book ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’. Through Julia, she was reunited with her mother culture and proudly fed us a different meal every single night (my father’s requirement).

My first moments in the kitchen, hanging on my mother’s cliched apron strings, were spent pretending to be a more French version of Julia. I grow up adoring Julia and watching her TV shows. Today, I still love her and reference her books on a daily basis. …

I was reading Jose Pizarro’s beautifully photographed book ‘Spanish Flavors’ and started massively craving the robust flavors of a perfectly cooked Spanish meal heady with garlic, smoked paprika and finished with a drizzle of fruity Spanish olive oil. I drooled as I flipped through the pages of food porn imagining myself sitting at a tapas bar sipping on a glass of Cava or perhaps Txacoli with plates of charred octopus and crispy Flamenquin waiting in front of me. Or maybe digging into a real Paella with its socarrat, the crispy, crunchy, caramelized rice stuck to the bottom of a pan that anyone who truly understands the virtues of Paella fights for. Somehow I managed to maintain enough presence of mind to write a list of dishes I wanted to tackle later that night, hopped into our car and headed to the market. I do this all the time, I attempt to have a ‘menu’ prior to shopping and never manage to come home with any of it intact. Every single time I get completely waylaid by the richness and diversity of offerings. I guess I just love food too much to be constrained in that way or maybe it’s just not the way I think. The third more feasible explanation is that my dear mother thought of a wonderful creamy blanquette de veau at the exact moment of my childbirth, forgetting she wasn’t at the table, squeezed a bit too hard, and perhaps cut off air circulation to my brain at a critical moment resulting in a mild form of menu amnesia. Whatever you call it, I have the struggle every single day. …

Salumi: The Craft of Italian Dry Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn… What an amazing book, absolute food porn for us Chefs and foodies alike. The problem is two fold, first, it has me curing everything in sight. I got five Kuni Kuni pigs from Cook Pig the other day. I normally use them all for Porchetta but got a bug up my ass and decide to make a ton of charcuterie. I suppose I should back up and mention that I am Chef of Figue Mediterranean in La Quinta, California. One of the big features of our operation is a charcuterie bar reminiscent of a high end sushi bar. The intent was always that we would make our own charcuterie but I never had much time till now. I suppose the whole opening a restaurant thing got in the way.

So today sous chef extraordinaire Alex Hernandez and myself set about curing everything in sight. Filetto cured with Aleppo Pepper and Orange; citrus and fennel cured lonzo, pancetta, spicy guanciale and my first attempt at coppa… I scared our sommelier Celeste because I told her that I would hang my meat in her wine box since the temperature and humidity was perfect. I think the thought of over 100 pounds of meat hanging next to her great wine selections scared her…

Here are photos from the day’s work sprinkled with a few other forays into Charcuterie world:

Lamb Mortadella made from Elysian Fields lamb… It tastes so good! I have been serving it with house made Fig Pickles

Truffled Veal Sausage that I featured for my Bastille Day menu… The focus was Famous Last Meals from the Bastille. The Marquis de Sade ate these.

cures and a rather tattered kitchen notebook dating back to 2003

All in all we cured 100 pounds of freshly butchered pork. We used the salt box method which essentially is rubbing every single crevice of meat in coarse sea salt, vacuum packing everything then letting it sit refrigerated for a few days. The basic procedure for all whole muscle meats is the same. What varied and will vary is the seasoning in the final curing. Since my palate of flavors includes France, Italy Spain, Basque region, Lebanon, Greece, Morocco and anywhere else in the Mediterranean I have a lot of historical flavor combinations to pull from, not too mention the mixing of cultures. In six weeks we will have a tasty selection of house meats for our charcuterie bar.

Sometimes copying is the sincerest form of flattery. This dish originated in my repertoire after a cook book written by the folks of Boulevard. Who doesn’t love a cook book with an obvious slant towards adding bacon to everything. I never ate there but I love them!

Paul Virant‘s book explores in depth different pickling techniques and recipes that are so easy to add to your repertoire. I had done small amounts of pickling prior to picking this book up, now I am pickling everything. I have made Sake Pickled Summer Tomatoes, Pickled Okra, Charred Spring Onion Pickles, Moroccan Pickled Baby Carrots and more… Preserving goes hand and hand with the concept of our charcuterie bar.

“Cooking by Hand” by Paul Bertolli is a book for Chefs and those who love food alike. I wish more cook books were written like this. It is extremely thorough and informative. I am going to make Mortadella this week because of it… Thanks Paul for an amazing book!

At Thanksgiving dinner, the roasted turkey or ham take center stage, but, truth be told, it's those favorite side dishes that really add spice and interest to the meal. Enhance the fun by picking tasty, intriguing wines to match both the succulent, savory main course and the side dishes' diverse ... ... See more

Why Pistou and Pastis?

Pistou is a very simple, rustic soup made with whatever is at hand, and evokes the very spirit of Provence in every bite. There is no one single recipe to adhere to, rather it is a joyous celebration of whatever is in season and inspires you to share your table with friends.

Pastis, on the other hand, is an integral part of daily life that encourages laughter and merriment, and fuels our imagination on dreary Pacific Northwest days when we are at home dreaming of lavender, laughter and golden sunsets.

We hope Pistou and Pastis acts as a metaphor to inspire home cooks to be more free and fearless in the kitchen, and to use the seasons like other people use cookbooks.

Week by week, we will share beautiful dishes made with what what we found at the farmers market. Sometimes the pastis will inspire a long dialogue, other times simply a great recipe quickly posted to share. Foods that profoundly touch your soul, are one of the many treasures of life.